Tag: Equity Prices

As the COVID crisis continues, some have speculated that wealth inequality will drop becauseit did in the 1400s during the Black Death. However, this cure is not only of course considerably worse than the disease, but it’s also no cure. Economic inequality is a cumulative process – the worse off you are, the worse off you get unless something positive reverses this compound effect. Conversely, the better off, the still more comfortable unless something comes along to redistribute your gains, however well or ill gotten. Given how unequal the U.S. was before COVID, it will surely get only more so now, especially if the Fed stays the course with trillions for financial markets and pennies for everyone else.Continue reading “Inequality Rising”→

As the chimera of the post-crisis recovery fades and central bankers find themselves powerless to reverse recession,“people’s quantitative easing”is gaining attention as a tool a growing number of central bankers fancy gives them a new way to wreak their beneficent will. People’s QE – also known more colorfully as “helicopter money” – means that, despairing of fiscal-policy remedies, central banks print money and then either just give it to the people or invest it in assets they or their bosses think best for equalizing, trade-deficit dropping, climate-restoring, or other all-to-the-good economic growth. However, it’s not just central bankers casting longing eyes at the ability of central banks to print money – officials ranging from those in the Trump Administration to the Democratic Socialist candidate for President see it as a new way to do what they think are the voter’s bidding without raising the deficit. This is really, really central banking, but for all its power, it’s very problematic. QE so far has done little to spur sustained recovery and much to make the U.S. even more unequal. There’s no reason to believe a people’s QE will be any better.Continue reading ““People’s QE” and Noblesse Oblige”→